Friday, April 20, 2007

Browse these cycling and power links

  • A great place to start... Machinehead Software. Power calculator is here but there's lots of great stuff
  • This looks interesting... a running-based anaerobic sprint test... not exactly cycling but interesting, and a useful way to calculate power over a 35m run... annoying yellow advert takes the eye, too. Uuuugh. Aaahh but it links to this Wingate test... all is not lost. Not a bad site, actually, full of info. Like this chart on "Percentile norms for Relative Peak Power for active young adults" - especially interesting, if you happen to have a power meter handy! An average sort of club racer, IMHO, would fall into the 90th percentile, surely? Having said that I'm neither young nor average (who is?) and I go right off the scale... remembering this is PEAK power, not sustained... and I'm not particularly overweight (nor skinny).


Male Female
%Rank Watts.Kg Watts.Kg
90 10.89 9.02
80 10.39 8.83
70 10.20 8.53
60 9.80 8.14
50 9.22 7.65
40 8.92 6.96
30 8.53 6.86
20 8.24 6.57
10 7.06 5.98

Maud, P.J., and Schultz B.B: 1989

  • And this...from the same link: "Percentile norms for Peak Power for active young adults":


Male Female
%Rank Watts Watts
90 822 560
80 777 527
70 757 505
60 721 480
50 689 449
40 671 432
30 656 399
20 618 376
10 570 353

Maud, P.J., and Schultz B.B: 1989

Looks like they surveyed some pretty average active people... perhaps non cyclists?

  • How about the Human Powered Vehicle association?
  • Or look at this technical exercise in analysing the forces at work on a bike.
  • Or this interesting exercise by FLAcyclist in comparing the power required to overcome a hilly bike course vs a less hilly but longer one...
  • And Analytic Cycling is a treasure trove that will have you staring at the computer for hours... STOP IT! Go outside and ride!

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